Malaysia's Nicol David will meet Australian Rachael Grinham in the final of the Women's Hotel Equatorial Penang Open Squash Championship after the top two seeds had contrasting wins in today's (Friday) semi-finals of the new WISPA World Tour event at the International Squash Centre in Penang, Malaysia.
World number one David, the favourite playing on courts in her home town, beat third seed Rebecca Chiu 9-2, 9-0, 9-5 in 33 minutes to claim her eighth successive win over Chiu since losing to her Hong Kong rival in the Asian Games final in October 2002.
Rachael Grinham, the second seed from Queensland, denied the enthusiastic crowd an all-Malaysian final when she defeated fourth seed Sharon Wee in the other semi-final. Grinham, a former world number one, needed almost an hour to quash Wee, from Kuala Lumpur, 9-4, 9-6, 9-10, 9-1.
The final will be the pair's third WISPA World Tour meeting in four weeks after David beat the Australian en-route to winning both the Qatar Airways Challenge in India and the CIMB Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur last month.
RESULTS: Women's Hotel Equatorial Penang Open Squash Championship, Penang, Malaysia
Semi-finals:
[1] Nicol David (MAS) bt [3] Rebecca Chiu (HKG) 9-2, 9-0, 9-5 (33m)
[2] Rachael Grinham (AUS) bt [4] Sharon Wee (MAS) 9-4, 9-6, 9-10, 9-1 (58m)